Fallout Equestria: Desperados

Fallout Equestria: Desperados

Path to Power, Part 1

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"Harp Melody told me that being a leader was more than just making the right decisions at the right time, but also making the wrong decisions at the wrong time. So long as you were the one making the decisions, you were the leader. Nopony follows a leader that is filled with indecision.

Unfortunately for Harp, this meant to hold life and death over other ponies. Being the judge, jury, and executioner. Having asked her if she regrets some of the choices she has made, she simply told me that she would have regretted whatever choice she had to make. Because rarely ever were her opinions fair.

I have seen a lot of leaders in my time and the truly great ones were rarely good people. They simply pushed against the odds and survived." ~ Azure Dice

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“Well… we were able to follow the map Star Charter made and found the old tunnel, but all those stealth-bucks we recovered are all damaged like Star said. You think they're still useful, Miss Harp?” Pilfer asked me. His eyes, every now and then, looked at the invisible shimmer on top of the overmare’s desk I was sitting behind.

I had decided to just leave the animal be since it was not being aggressive. Also having it in the room with me made nearly everypony far more respectful towards me. It may be the fear of the nightstalker and not of me, but it helped to establish authority between me and the other escaped convicts.

I gave the thief a smile. “That’s what I want to find out. Is there anything else you found down there? Don’t worry. You can keep most of the things you pocketed. I just want information or anything that might be useful.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “You're quite a cool dame. You know that?”

“Save the flattery until after this stable is unified,” I told him sternly.

“Oh. Right. My apology, Miss Harp.” He pulled out a small bag from his jacket that Cherry had made for him. The thing had a stupid amount of pokets on the inside. Emptying them out, a card and a data stick fell onto the table. “Ya. Further back, we found a hidden room that had been left open. It had several skeletons with this stuff on them. It gave me that wrong feeling, like when you break into the home of a psychopath kind of wrong. It had all that lab stuff and lots of cages.”

Turning over the card, it had the symbol of the Ministry of Awesome on it and a code. I didn’t know a lot about this ministry. Just that their public face and private face were as different as night and day. Back home, the organization Orthrus had found one of their secret hubs, but they never told anypony of what they found inside. My own family records said that my ancestor Majesty had worked with the M.Aw several times, researching new tech. But even she never told anypony what she saw or did with them. She did not even mention it in her journals after the war ended.

“Do any of Spritz followers know about this?” I asked.

Pilfer gave out a quick confident laugh. “Oh please. Those knuckle heads were too busy watching out for more besties to keep an eye on me all the time. Anyways, I made sure I was in and out for only a few seconds. It’s a rule among professionals like me to never overstay our welcome.”

“Especially when in places you don’t belong,” I added and he smiled in confirmation. “Well make sure any of this does not reach Spritz ears. I may not know steel rangers as well as you, but I get the feeling that this is the kind of thing they go to war over.”

“Thought the exact same thing. Trust me, when we wastelanders find any new tech, the last thing we do is tell anypony about it. There’s several old foal tales about it where it never ends well for the pony with loose lips.”

Looking at the card, I couldn’t help but wonder what else was in there. Guns, tech, some lost horror that should never be released. I would need to go down there after Spritz is taken care of.

“Thanks for your help with this mess. You should go and take a break, but please do keep your ears open and mouth shut. For both our sakes,” I told Pilfer.

“Oh you don’t have to tell me twice. I know what’s coming our way if that bitch takes full control,” he said before leaving the overmars office.

Henbane trotted in after Pilfer had left the room. The mare pulled out a large piece of meat. The nightstalker then dropped it’s invisibility. Its mouth opened wide as Henbane tossed the meat to it.

As the creature chowed down onto the slab of snake meat, I couldn't help being a bit mesmerized by how beautiful this nightstalker was. After Star somehow got them to accept being washed, their dirty gray coats turned an almost pure white with a gray diamond pattern along its back. The snake head was still somewhat dog shaped and its scaled tail reflected the light around it. Despite all the beauty, the animal was still clearly dangerous with its venomous fangs and almost unpredictable personality. Fortunately, as long as we kept them fed, they were as docile as a regular dog, though far more mischievously smart.

“So… may I ask how that thing got in here? It’s been looking for it for almost an hour,” Henbane asked as she looked at the nightstalker.

I sighed. “It literally opened the door on it’s own and took over my desk.”

Henbane physically quivered. “Celestia fuck me with her horn. If the nightstalkers were like that back home, my family would all be dead. The normal ones were enough to force any merchant caravan to risk rader territory then to deal with them. Star has got to have the eyes of Fluttershy if she managed to tame these monsters of monsters.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The eyes of Fluttershy?”

“Ya. The mare of the Ministry of Peace. Old legend says she could tame any beast by just looking them in the eyes. Even the Zebras have their own legends about her. They tell their foals if they're not good then her doom bunny will come for them,” she explained.

Right. My history books said something about Fluttershy having some strange magical ability involving her eyes.

“Well history and legends aside, I don’t feel confident in moving this animal until Star comes to help. Now do you have anything to report?” I asked Henbane.

The mare trotted closer, keeping an eye on the nightstalker. “About the plan, ya. Things are moving along smoothly. Your insistence on recovering tech has got Spritz laying her influence thin to just maintain control. You may be able to take the pony out of the steel rangers, but you can’t take the steel ranger out of that mare. She is held up in the maintenance to make sure nopony fucks with all the tech down there. Cherry has been sowing discontent among Spritz’s followers. Amazing what some food and a fuck can get you.”

“Good. And her most loyal flowers?” I followed up.

Henbane rolled her eyes, clearly not a fan of the subject. “Loyal is a bit too strong of a word for them. More shared interests than anything. Most are from ganagers that got taken out by the NCR, so they're down with Spritz’s point of view. Fortunately they’re no steel ranger, so that weird chem the zebras have been cooking up has been keeping those assholes distracted. But if things turned into a fight, they would still side with Spritz. No way to change their mind.”

“Alright. Just have a few ponies keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t see anything we don’t want them to,” I told her.

“Right boss. But what do you plan to do with them once Spritz is out of the picture?” Henbane asked me.

The mare was less loyal and more against Spritz, so I could trust her enough to not stab me in the back. For her, there was only death waiting for her with Spritz. “I’ll have a grave dug for them. They are the first that need to go.”

A look of shock formed on her face.

“Miss Henbane, trust me when I say this. The last thing we need is several smaller Spritz running around among us. So long as they're around, Spritz has the power to keep her control. Without them, she is only one mare.” I explained.

“A fucking mountan of rage and self righteousness. Not to be paranoid, but she looks like the kind of mare that needs no backup to kill us all.” Henbane stated her worry.

I nodded. “I’m in full agreement. That's why I’m working on a way to negate that strength of hers. But I first have to make sure nopony has her back, otherwise it could all fall apart.”

A long sigh came from Henbane. “I get it, and I’ll stick to the job I was given. Now I’ll go tell Star that her missing pet is here, then you can come down and join us for some grilled snake stakes.”

Henbane then left, and fortunately, no pony came in after her. I had been spending most of the day going over logistics and giving out orders. It all was taking longer to do because of ponies constantly coming to ask questions or report random shit. It seems that not only Slowtrot was seeing ghosts down here, so some ponies are a bit more on edge then the rest.

Tapping at the overmars terminal, I looked over our supply list both on the Blue and Red side of the stable. The food situation had not changed, though the red side was burning through theirs a bit faster than we were. As for bullets and guns, there was barely enough ammo left for the NCR guns. I was glad we were able to kill the giant snake without wasting ammo. As for the supply of 10mm, we have more than enough for the guns we have, which is not many.

At least water will not be a problem. Fortunately the water purification talisman on both sides were undamaged and just needed some dusting off to get back in working order, though the rusting pipes left everything with a metallic taste to it. At least we're not drinking dirty water.

Looking over at the nightstalker, I gave it a little scratch under its chin and the thing gave me a happy hiss. “You are a strange dog.” I told her.

Turning my attention to the datastick Pilfer had given me, I decided to give it a quick look.

“Incriped data, Madam Harp.” Order told me. The cartoonish twittermight looked a bit annoyed.

“Order, can you decrypt?” I asked my smarter than it should be Virtual Intelligent assistant.

“Old equestrian encryption from the Ministry of Awesome… finished!” Order told me as text then filled my pipbuck screen.

Old Equestria tech was still top of the line even after over two hundred years. No doubt about it. But Orthrus tech has had the time to match and surpass it. If only I had more than just the Orthrus pipbuck on me.

Quickly looking over all the logs, most about their own logistics and a few projects not spoken in any detail. But several logs caught my eye. They were called “Project (Ghost) Snake-otes.”

Log 1

The shipment of the bioweapons have arrived along with a huge shipment of stealth-bucks. Our job is to train and expand their numbers for the use as specialized guard dogs. The Snake-ote puppies in our care are quite friendly and smart, despite them having a monstrous form. I wonder why using those monsters when a normal dog would be just fine, but due to an isolation order being in effect, any questions to the main hub will have to wait.

Log 2

The training has gone well so far and the integration of stealth-bucks has started. They take to being invisible more than ponies do. Most likely because they can see heat just like a snake. We even tried using the stealth-bucks around them and they saw right through the spell. With how sneaky the zebras are, I now see the appeal to using these as guard dogs.

Log 3

Testing the Snake-otes around civilians has begun. Using the stealth-bucks, we come from the tunnels and stand near where the civilians pass. All safely behind the fence. Two behavior patterns have been noticed. Snake-otes that have extensive training are calm and quiet. They observe their surroundings and generally being a good dog. As for the control group that are mostly untrained, they shy away from the civilians and will rattle their tail. One temporarily got away, spooking several ponies, but was never seen before we recaptured it. This happened a few more times. We later did it on purpose to observe it in more detail. It seems the natural instinct of the Snake-otes is to stay out of sight and hunt easy prey.

Log 4

The vat growing process to increase the Snake-otes biodiversity has been a success with the new batch of puppies alive and healthy. A few of our control group have also laid eggs. This is odd because both rattlesnakes and coyotes don’t lay eggs. We have decided to keep this oddity as it allows the female to continue to move about after mating.

Log 5

A strange mutation has happened to some of the naturally hatch Snake-otes. They are able to naturally turn invisible. This too is a feature we will keep if it can reproduce it. We suspect it has something to do with the stealth-bucks.

Log 6

Turns out that the stealth-bucks magic lingers in the Snake-otes and can be passed down to the young. Because of this, we are now putting stealth-bucks inside the gestation vats to see if we can copy the result artificially.

Log 7

We are naming this new breed the Ghost Snake-ote, after the project itself. This new Snake-ote is capable of near perpetual invisibility along with a high intelligence and a natural avoidance of crowds. This Snake-ote is the ultimate stealth predator and guard dog. The isolation order will be over soon and I know Rainbow Dash is going to be so stoked to see these puppies.

Log 8

There was not enough time. The damn zebras have attacked and all communication is down. The Civilians have taken shelter inside the cave thinking it will protect them, but our sensors have detected baelfire radiation moving in and getting stronger.

One of our team members has a major in geology and studied how the weather works. No fucking clue why he is in bio research then, but he is panicked as all fuck. Turns out the natural topography here makes this place a deadzone for wind, so everything blows in but nothing blows out. This includes the damn balefire fallout.

Soon the land above will become a major hot zone as the irradiated particles gather here to stay. We could try and sneak into the local stable, but something about it’s construction tells me that it’s a bad idea. We at least have enough food and water to last us far longer than the civilians. We just need to find a solution before we starve to death.

Log 9

The one good thing about living in a bio lab and having live test subjects just next door. We can blast through this research faster than the ministries would ever ethically let anypony. The civilians were doomed from the start, but it didn’t make it any less horrible to them.

But we have made a breakthrough. We have a serum that allows a pony to fully resist radiation, all thanks to the ghost snake-oties. There are some mutations from it, but we don’t have the time to work out the kinks.

Last Log.

If we only had enough time to test out the serum, to see the long term effects. We waited for the last of the civilians to die. The unfortunate ponies chose to take themselves out in the end. I think some ran into the tunnels hoping to find something. Anything to keep them alive.

With our ghost snake-oties, we ventured outside. The dessert itself was glowing from the fallout. A horrifyingly beautiful emerald green. The geiger counter was off the chart through the whole expedition. After a few days, we noticed that the effects of the serum were causing some of us to mutate further. Not some growth that can be cut off, or becoming sick. No. We were changing physically. Some of our fur fell off and scales formed underneath. One of us went mad, barking and hissing at the rest of us, thus forcing us to put him down when he attacked.

I and the other mutating scientist went back to the lab in the hopes to find a way to reverse the mutation. It was the best option really. This gave the others who weren't mutating a better chance to survive. At least we have our snake-oties to keep us company. They’ good and weird snake dogs.

Removing the data stick, I sighed. It was one tragedy after another here, but it at least explained the nightstaklers behavior. It also meant that there were more out there, staying out of sight.

My door opened and a nightstalker puppy rushed through with Star Charter behind it. “Sorry about losing her like that. They're really hard to keep track of,” she apologised.

Letting the puppy jump onto my lap, I gave it a pat on the head as it happily hissed at me.

“As it turns out, that's what they were made to do,” I said as I held up the data chip. “Among other things, these nightstalkers happen to be a secret ministry project to make better guard dogs. They are called ghost snake-oties and should be trainable. That’s if over the last 200 years has not bred that tamness out of them.”

“Snake-oties?” Star said with a raised eyebrow.

I tossed her the data chip. “Look up snake-oties. It has a bunch of logs about them.”

She smiled. “Snake-oties sound lame. Ghost Nightstalkers ... now that is a cool name. How about it, Snaps?”

The nightstalker on my desk yipped happily.

“Snaps? It already has a name?” I asked.

Star trotted over and began to pet Snaps. “Might as well give them names. You can give one of them a name if you want. Anywho, you must be hungry. I know I am.”

Putting the puppy on the desk, I got out of my seat. “Lets,” I agreed.

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A lot of work had gone into preparing the big snak’s corpse for not just this meal, but making sure it didn’t rot on us. Fortunately the cold storage in the stable was in mostly working order, though I had to help give it a power boost first. So now we have a lot of salted snake meat which will extend how long we can live here if we needed to stay longer than planned.

Not just the meat was carefully harvested and stored, but almost every part of its body. Blood, bones, and some of the intestine were being preserved. The wasteland ponies didn’t let anything go to waste despite how dirty and ill educated most of them seemed to be.

As for our meal, it didn’t look like much. A pale imitation of the food I had eaten in stable 50. It is a cooked slab of snake meat served with a side of glowing fungus that has been soaked in snake blood with chilly as a gravy. Putting it in my mouth, the flavor clashed and it was clearly not cooked as well as it could have. Yet my mouth watered and my taste buds tingled. It must have been the snake meat, or the sauce, but it tasted so good that I couldn't help but enjoy it.

Everypony else enjoyed the meal as well. There was a feast before we all had to go back to rationing it out. It’s also a celebration of our victory over the monsters of the wasteland. It was furthermore another way to further cut Spritz off from her followers. Though she did strike the killing blow, it was Star and I that brought it into the trap. Star put her own life on the line for it. Everypony here knew it, but Spritz seemed ignorant of the shifting in power.

She lords over everypony, establishing a chain of command through power and fear. I’ve been establishing my own power structure through the necessity of skills. Just like back home in the Marewaii Metro, being able to turn back one long dead tech is extensively valuable. That and my willingness to take on the work that requires more thinking. This is in addition to a few well placed talks with ponies who have influence. I have become a pony they need if they are to survive, where Spritz is the pony they need to placate or risk death.

“Everypony listen up!” Amralt bellowed. “Old Yack tradition to give speech when yak has feast! So yak wants to thank pony friend for the opportunity to smash as free yak. In Yakyakistan, there is little food. Lots of snow. So yaks must be strong, and yaks are strong. But yak has hard time understanding pony ways. Caused yak problems with NCR ponies. Yak wishes to go explore more, then go home, but yak was in prison for being yak. Thanks to pony friend, Yak is free, and so are all you ponies. We all are now free to go wherever we wish, to leave the NCR to smash their own problems without us.”

Many of the ponies cheered at the little speech. Others simply raised their glass in agreement. Only three ponies didn’t seem to like that speech. They were Spritz's true followers. Three of them were here to keep an eye on everypony. Four more were down below with Spritz, making sure any and all tech was accounted for.

As everypony celebrated, ate, and some went in for a second survivings of snake meat, I finished my meal and snuck away to the Zebra’s private room.

Inside several dirty stabletech plates were stacked up in the corner. The zebras were given first dibs on the meal so that they didn’t have to stay around the ponies for all that long. They kept their distance from ponies when they could. Which was good for us, because they had a job to finish.

Trotting up the alchemy station they had constructed, Star and Slowtrot were already here waiting for me. Star was still chewing on a slab of snake meat along with the ghost nightstalker pack.

Slowtrot, on the other hoof, was giving the zebras a medical scan. When they had learned that he received some training from a wartime zebra ghoul medic, they were a bit more relaxed around him.

“How do they look, Slowtrot?” I asked him.

“The Zebras? Other than Bitter, they’re in good health. I guess sticking to their own has helped them avoid disease, unlike the other ponies here,” he answered.

Star chuckled as she eyed one of the zebra stallions. “That's good to know.”

Ignoring Star, I trotted over to sickly looking Bitter. “Anything we can do for her?”

Slowtrot nervously scratched the side of his head. “Well the chem hangover will eventually pass, but whatever she caught from the NCR guard is going to be a lot more difficult.”

Right. There was a bit of an STD problem among the ponies here. If I remember correctly, there was a way to treat such things back home. But we were in the wasteland, so she unfortunately might just have to live with it. “Is it deadly?”

Shaking his head, Slowtrot sighed. “It’s a more common ailment that’s going around. Nothing too serious, but not fun to have from what I’ve been told. The followers have a treatment for it which reduces the symptoms.”

That was good to know.

Bitter held her head in pain, looking like she regretted everything in her life right now. Most of all sleeping with the NCR guard. Next to her were several of the guns we still owned along with a kitchen's worth of knives. But most importantly, there were several vials ready to be filled.

It was a bit elaborate, but Spritz was expecting a direct attack, or an attempt to use explosives. But using poison gas, that was something she probably did not expect us to use.

That aside, something was bothering me. “Why the weapons?”

Bitter attempted to smile, but only managed a grimace. “Fuck, why can’t I get some med-x, pony?”

Slowtrot sighed and explained. “You're suffering from a chem induced hangover and my pipbuck warned of a possibly deadly side effect if you take med-x while that crap is still in your system.”

Groaning, Bitter turned to me. “What you're asking for is just a byproduct of the real potion. The potion we have created is an old enchantment potion that we paint onto an item. You probably heard about that zebra rifle the Lightbringer used, the one that sets whoever is hit by it on fire. Well that’s because of zebra enchanting paint.”

I gave her a concerned look. “So why do you know such a technique?”

Bitter gave a pained chuckle. “Unlike the fake zebras calling themselves the Angels, our tribe are true descendants of the Zebraca empire. Something... something about covertly supplying anti-Equestria ponies with weapons. A lot of the details have been lost to time. It’s what my mother told me, and her mother told her. I think we never went home out of some duty to make sure Equestria never came back for revenge.”

I face hoofed at this information. “Are you sure it’s smart to tell me this?”

She shrugged. “It was all over two hundred years ago. Most ponies, other then some ghouls and the tin cans, don’t give a fuck about the old war. What they do care about is the skills we provide.

“Unfortunately for us, the fucking NCR didn’t like that we were providing for ponies they were not on good turms with… and we attack the Angles.”

“Right, right. Let's move on. What enchantment are you planning to make for the weapons?” I asked, not wanting to get into any more ancient history.

This time Bitter managed to grin wildly as she lifted a knife with a smeared zebra striped paint on it. “I didn’t know exactly what it would do at first, so I tested it. Unfortunately the paint needs more time to seep into the weapon, but the results were… quite nasty.”

“Nasty?” I repeated questionly.

She put the knife away. “Ya. Real nasty. I have managed to transfer the giant snake venom to the paint and it magically passes it on to whoever is hit by it. For ponies who don’t heal like Star, it means when they are hit by the enchantment, it would be as though they just got envenomized. It mainly does two things, of which I’ve observed in the rats I poked. Firstly it causes the target to bleed more than they should, and second the rats become disoriented. A nasty way to die.”

I looked at the potion, now knowing how deadly it was. Understanding that if things turn bad for us, we will need that power. “Alright. That’s nasty. And the gas bombs?”

“Easy to make. Not very effective outdoors though. Should have the same effect as the enchantment,.” she explained.

“Alright. I’ll let you do your work. I just need one to test soon,” I told Bitter.

I then watched as she made me one gas bomb with help from Star. She mixed the potion with another liquid before sealing the vial with a very small explosive. It bubbled and shook for a moment before settling down. Then they attached a switch to it and passed it to me.

Star pointed at the switch and explained, “Took some foals toy with a micro spark battery and attached it to a fuse. Flip the switch and you got a few seconds to throw it.”

Placing it safely in a small box and then into my saddle bag, I nodded back at them.

Feeling curious, I stuck around to watch the weapons get painted. Mixing the potion with some paint, it was clear which ones the zebras planned to keep. They painted stripes onto a few NCR combat knives and one of the rifles. The others were given a less flashy paint job by simply sploshing them with green and yellow paint, including the two 10mm’s we had.

Then Star pulled out parts from her own pistol. They had been scratched up carefully in a way to look like snake scales. Unlike the other 10mm’s, her auto pistol was given more care in painting, thus making them look almost like real scales. As the painting was nearly finished, it became clear that she had the zebras copy the colors and pattern of the ghost nightstalkers. It was now a silverish white gun with a gray diamond pattern along the side.

When it was all done, the weapons were all put inside a container. Next they put a cup of burning potion infused paper in the container before closing it.

Bitter then sighed. “If this all goes well, we should have a bunch of venomous weapons to use. I’m calling them the snake bight weapons.”

Star chuckled. “Neat name, but I want to call my gun the Nightstalker’s Regard!”

“Symbolism is important to this magic.” Bitter said as she pulled out her test knife again. “We use stripes because they are meant to be zebra weapons and used by zebras. Making the magic of the enchantment stick better, often empowers it from what I was told.”

Feeling out with my own magic, I could feel the somewhat twisted magic of the painted weapons moving about as they attached their enchantment to the steel. Among them, I could feel one stronger than the others and the magic solidifying far faster than the rest. “Ya,” I agree. “Magic does tend to stick when it has a purpose.”

Star trotted over to me with a mischievous grin on her face. “So, we can wait for the weapons to dry, or maybe do something else and come back later.”

I felt the box containing the gas bomb in my bag. “Actually, we have plans to put in motion and they need to happen fast.”

She smiled wide. “Then let's get to work.”

_______________________________________________________

Leaving the others behind and entering the residential section, Star and I were quickly followed by two of Spritz’s followers. We expected one, but two was even better. We just needed them to follow us with nopony trailing or watching.

Trotting to the end of the hallway and into the restrooms, we both then waited. The door soon opened and a mare and stallion trotted in, both armed with 10.mm SMG’s. I recognized them as ponies that held some influence under Spritz in the prison. Now they had even more power. The mare was an interrogator. Rumorss of her cornering and making a pony sob in fear was abundant.

As for the stallion, he seemed to be a simple enforcer, but Cherry told me he was one of the ponies who replaced the zebras in the black powder room, so he knew explosives.

“Must you really follow us everywhere?” I sarcastically asked the two stalkers.

The mare snarled. “When you’re plan on running a good thing, then yes. Yes we do.”

Star rolled her eyes at them. “Any chance you could stop kissing Spritz’s asshole? You got some brown on your lip.”

The stallion just glared as the mare continued to talk. “Fuck you, you whore house slut. You don’t understand what we went through. What the fucking NCR took from us. Here we got a small army, a base and some guns. I heard what the others were whispering. About just staying put and fixing up the stable to live in. A pipe dream. We need to fight back, and you're in the way of that.”

I smiled as one of the pieces of the plan flawlessly came together. Misinformation. My real plan was to leave this place and go to the Desperados. I made sure that any pony didn’t need to know, they were told something different. Staying here and hiding out was a simple and easy to swallow lie. It helped that I was helping with getting some of the stable back online.

If the information that Spritz’s followers were sending her was incorrect, then she would not be able to properly respond to me. Case in point, her being down in maintenance then up here keeping an eye on me.

“We ain't just going to hunker down and become stable ponies. We’re going to make the NCR bleed.” the stallion clarified.

“Ya, so we're going to need you out of the way. Ya dig?” the mare threatened.

“Is this an order from Spritz?” I asked calmly.

The mare then scowled. “Fucking damn right it is, you fucking freeks.”

I looked at Star and then back at the two ponies threatening us. “So that's it, then. Kiss kiss, bang bang?”

The mare growled in frustration. “Oh stop acting like such an eggheaded cunt. No way you're sweet talking to us like the others.”

They both then pulled their guns out as at the same time, grins on their faces.

Star whistled loudly. Appearing around the two ponies were the four adult nightstalkers, teeth bearing, ready to attack. I don’t know how Star was able to command them so easily, but right now I really didn’t care.

Our attackers froze, unsure what to do next.

With the tables turned, I gave them a big smile. “How about we forget this ever happened and I talk about this with Spritz. All’s fair that she got back at me for what happened at the prison. Don’t you think?”

Both ponies quickly lost their nerve, putting their guns away. “Ff-fine, you live today, but watch your back.”

She turned to leave, but the alpha nightstalker blocked their path, growling a hiss.

“How about you two stay here for a bit and we trot on out first.” I told them.

The mare scowled, but nodded.

Trotting passed them, I made sure all four nightstalkers left before stopping at the door. Taking out the box containing the gas bomb, I placed it on the floor. “Oh, I got some tech working recently and wanted Spritz’s opinion on it. That is unless you want a crack at it first. She seems quite content to get first dibs on everything.

Feeling out with my magic, I sent enough power to the switch for it to activate without being manually switched. Then I slid it over to them.

The mare seemed disinterested, but the stallion picked it up.

“Don’t fucking throw tha…” There mare tried to warn him, but he already opened it. With a pop, the stallion got a face full of the gas. He hit the closed door button. I felt out the magical wiring in the door which powered the mechanism to make sure it stayed closed.

The sounds of a pony beating at the door soon followed. Angry at first, but soon frantic, then weak. The sound of hooves soon ended. We waited for a few minutes just in case. I had asked for the gas to only linger in the air for a short time, but didn’t want to risk going back in too soon.

“I think they're dead,” Star pointed out calmly.

Nodding, I turned around. “They better be. Life with that kind of pain would be the worst thing ever.”

We waited another minute. Impatient, Star took a deep breath and opened the door. She trotted back over to me in case some of the gas was still in the air. What we saw was two ponies bleeding from every hole in their body. Red foam seeped from their mouths and they had scratched at their own throats before expiring.

Seeing it myself, I now knew why the zebra alchemy weapons from the great war were so feared. They were terrible and cruel weapons, yet efficient and easily used.

Star Charter whistled in amusement. “Fuck. That looks like a horrible way to go. Is it safe to get the guns?”

With a sigh, I said, “Not sure, so keep your muzzle covered and quickly grab them. We got a few more poneis to kill before we're ready to take on the big fish.”

_______________________________________________________

-unique Item upgraded-

-The Stable-Tec IF-21A1 machine pistol has become the Nightstalker’s Regard-

The fully automatic 10.mm pistol now has the venom effect. It does damage over time along with weakening the target’s offensive and defensive ability. It has a snake pattern engraving and paint that acts like a subtle warning to those who see it.